


carefully (vignettes)

by iluvzuzu



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Eddie Kaspbrak Lives, F/M, Gen, M/M, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2020-12-07
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:07:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27942743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iluvzuzu/pseuds/iluvzuzu
Summary: Putting each other's pieces back after Derry. No one knows exactly how careful to be.
Relationships: Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Bill Denbrough & Mike Hanlon, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 5
Kudos: 17





	carefully (vignettes)

No one knows exactly how careful to be. 

Ben is ginger with it, like Beverly is a stray dog and if he moves too fast he could scare her back under the porch or worse, out into the street. His tenderness makes Beverly rabid; she wants to jump him, but doesn’t know how to do it without taking advantage. She’s never had the power like this before. Eddie is practically catatonic and Richie wants to smack him out of it but couldn’t lay a hand on that stubbled, scarred cheek if he fucking tried. Sometimes, he almost gets the nerve to say it out loud, “Your mother wasn’t right about you, you’re not doomed to this life of invalidity, who cares if you’re broken as long as you’re alive,” but he’s a coward, through and through. He can’t fix Eddie if it means losing him; he knows you rarely get to be both, the one who smashes the facade apart and the one who helps rebuild the house. Mike and Bill just don’t say anything. They had both promised to call, but neither does. Bill sits with his laptop in front of him, looking over the top edge of it out the window, watching the leaves dance in the street. He can’t type. Mike, too, is staring out his window, drinking his third cup of coffee. They all stare out windows, these days. Except for Stan, because Stan’s still dead. Poor Stan. 

Bill’s the first to break, Big Bill who’s always been the bravest, maybe. He’s not thinking about being brave, though, he’s just thinking about how fucked up it would be to make Mike call first again. Mike carried them all for thirty years, it’s the least Bill can do. Mike barely has time to say “Hello?” before Bill’s saying, “Listen. My wife’s out of town, filming on location for the next month. You should get the hell out of D-Derry. Come stay with me, see if you like LA.”

Mike pauses, then says, “California?” and Bill has to feel, like a punch to the gut, the fact that Mikey’s never been anywhere else but Maine. 

“It’s beautiful, you’ll love it,” Bill says. 

Mike says, “Okay.”

Beverly’s next. She says to Ben, “I can’t keep doing this.”

Ben’s chin juts as he sucks on his lip, and he nods. “I’m sorry, I never should have pressured you—”

“No, dummy,” she says, going to him, raising a hand to touch his cheek, trace his hairline around his ear down to the back of his neck. “I can’t keep walking on eggshells, here. You said you loved me, so love me. I’m here. I’m saying yes, I’m saying do it.”

So he scoops her up and takes her to the bed where he can kiss her all over, and she’s laughing but not at him, never at him; she’s laughing because she’s having fun. His facial hair tickles against her skin, and he likes to flutter his eyelashes on her neck and on her cheek. His hands are so strong and sure, even while trying to be gentle. She loves it. She loves him. There’s something churning in her gut, still, but she pushes it down and laughs until she’s breathless.

Myra hasn’t come to the hospital. She calls all the time, sobbing about the emotional distress Eddie’s put her through. What  _ he’s  _ put  _ her  _ through. Richie is livid. In the middle of one such call, he snatches the phone from Eddie’s hand and says, “Get over yourself, you fat bitch!” and hangs up on a wail. 

Eddie scowls, and makes direct eye contact with Richie for the first time in days. “Don’t fucking call her that,” he says. 

“Well, she was being a bitch,” Richie says, a grumble of defiance at odds with the blush creeping over his ears and neck. 

Eddie’s mouth tenses. “I meant fat.”

“Is she not fat?” Richie counters. 

“She is, but that’s not what’s bad about her. You can be more creative than that.” It’s the most he’s said in a while. 

“She hasn’t even come to see you,” Richie says. 

“That’s not because she’s fat, though,” Eddie sighs. 

“Okay,” Richie says, raising his voice even though he’d promised himself he wouldn’t. “I’m sorry. I’ll call your  _ wife  _ right back and say I’m sorry for calling her a fat bitch when actually she’s just a fucking insane, heinous, bratty, childish,  _ selfish  _ bitch.” 

To his surprise, Eddie’s lips quirk into a little smile. “Better.” 

Then Richie’s got this abundance of snot on his face. He’s like, “You know what, I’m allergic to this conversation,” but really he’s flooding, he’s boiling over, because he’s realizing that until this moment, he’d thought Eddie might never smile again. 

Bill picks Mike up from the airport in a flashy convertible. “Hi-yo Silver,” Mike says with a grin, tossing his things in the trunk. 

“Where to?” Bill asks.

Mike shakes his head, still dazed and grinning, feeling more and more weightless the further he gets from Derry. “I guess I’d like to see the Pacific.” 

So they drive. Even the crawl of traffic and the taste of smog in Mike’s mouth is refreshing, compared to the first half of his life. He laughs out loud, realizing he now believes he could live another 40 years if he wanted to, if he felt like it. Bill looks over at him, eyes hidden by his sunglasses but teeth glinting bright in his smile. He says, “What is it?”

And Mike calls out over the honking of car horns around them, “I’m in California!”

Ben is so good, too good. Bev feels like she did during her coke and bulimia days, riding so high and feeling like she could fuck it all up any second. She wants to scream at him, “What do you want? Who do you want me to be?” But he just looks at her sometimes and she’s like,  _ this is it, it’s me _ . “You don’t have to be so careful with me,” she says one night, lying on her back looking up at him, “I can take it.”

Ben sighs, sits back on his heels, says, “It’s not for you, it’s for me.” She cocks her head at him, willing him to explain. He rubs his chin, then lays his hand on her ankle, wrapping his fingers loosely around it. “I know you can handle anything, I’ve seen you do it,” he smiles softly. “It’s me. I can’t handle it. I can’t put that pressure on you.”

“Ben, what pressure?” she asks, propping herself up on her elbows, feet still on either side of his knees. 

He quirks his mouth, looks away. “It’s not fair to ask for what I want. I want too much. I should only take what you offer.” 

Eyes shimmering, Beverly sits up and crawls to him, settling herself across his lap and wrapping her arms around his neck. “Show me what you want,” she murmurs against his lips. His hands find the small of her back as she kisses him deeply. “I’m offering all of it.” 

One day, about a week after he first wakes up, Eddie turns to Richie and says, “Don’t you have somewhere to fucking be?”

Richie looks up from the game he’s been playing on his phone. “Fuck, you made me die.”

“You  _ have  _ a job, right?” Eddie continues. “Or is this funny to you, is this getting you off, being my babysitter?”

“I’m on hiatus,” Richie sniffs dismissively. “I’m telling everyone I’m in rehab.”

Eddie scoffs. “You’re not an addict.  _ Are  _ you an addict? Addiction’s not a fucking joke, Richie, people die from drug and alcohol abuse every day. Are you joking or are you an addict?”

“Not clinically,” Richie responds, sliding his phone into his chest pocket and pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose to survey Eddie through them. “It’s not a joke, it’s just something to say. Or do you think I should go public about the clown? ‘Hey everybody, I took a break from comedy to go shit-talk an alien to death. Oh, also, I fucking killed my junior high bully with an axe.’ That’ll go over well.”

Eddie shudders, then winces and raises a hand to his chest. At Richie’s concerned expression, he grumbles, “You wouldn’t need something to say if you just went back,” he says. 

“Jesus, man, I’m like, sitting in your fucking hospital room doing your paperwork and going over your physical therapy and medication treatment plans, and you think this is like, funny to me?” Richie explodes, his incredulousness propelling him out of his chair. 

“I didn’t ask you to,” Eddie rebuts. 

“That’s the point, dumbass, you didn’t  _ have  _ to ask,” he says loudly, now pacing. “Holy shit, did you get brain damage along with all that organ and spine shit?”

“I’m not fucking brain damaged, I’m asking you to tell me why the fuck you’re still here,” Eddie shouts. “Everyone else left, even my  _ wife  _ hasn’t come—”

“Hey, watch it, you’ll split your stitches and they’ll have to start all over,” Richie says, ceasing his movement and looking genuinely towards where Eddie sits propped up in bed.

“Then stop making me insane,” Eddie counters. 

At that, Richie cracks a smile. “I’m gonna call someone in to sedate you,” he warns. 

“Don’t you fucking dare,” Eddie says. 

“Look,” Richie says, taking up his seat again. “Somebody has to look out for you, man.”

“Yeah, ‘cause I’m sick and weak and broken and pathetic, I know, I get it,” Eddie intones. “I take it back, sedate me. In fact, euthanize me. Put me out of my misery.” 

“Fuck your wife,” Richie says. Eddie’s eyebrows shoot up, and Richie amends, “Not literally. Although I assume you—actually, have you?”

Eddie repeats, “Have I—”

“Fucked your wife?” Richie asks. “Is this too personal a question for your deathbed, I’m sorry—”

“You motherfucker,” Eddie complains. 

“Only your mother,” Richie responds with a shit-eating grin. 

“I’ll kill you,” Eddie tells him.

“Um, that’s a dumb move, since you saved my life in the first place,” Richie corrects him, still grinning. “No takebacks.”

“Is that why you’re here,” Eddie asks slowly, “because you feel like you owe me?”

Richie snorts, immediately castrating Eddie’s horrible and ill-conceived epiphany. “Fuck, no. I’m here because I’m your fucking problem now. You’re never getting rid of me, bitch.” 

Bill grabs them beers from this bougie restaurant posing as a shack along the boardwalk. Mike has already let the waves wash over his bare feet, already deemed the chill to be not worth it, and now has his toes buried in the dry sand to keep warm. It really should be the off-season, but he supposes there’s no off season for beaches in California. Bill says, “I’m glad you came out, man. I was feeling…” He shakes his head. 

“Me too,” Mike reassures him, sipping his beer. “Like I didn’t know what was next.”

“We held onto that for a long time,” Bill agrees. “You especially, since you remembered all of it.”

“Yeah. Hard to see the future when you’re stuck in the past, and all,” Mike says distantly. 

They stare out at the sea. Mike’s seen the Atlantic, of course, Bill knows. But he wonders if Mike is considering how cold, how deep the Pacific is. How impossibly wide. He doesn’t want to think about the fun fact people peddle, that we know more about what’s in space than in the ocean, or whatever. He knows one thing from space he’d rather not see crawling out from the water. 

He pauses, then says, “I want to write another book. Not just pulp stuff. Something… real.”

Mike nods. “Real how?” he asks, sounding cautious. 

But Bill’s shaking his head. “Not like It. Like… I don’t know. Something where the monsters are just people. How we’re victims of each other, our classmates, our families, our neighbors.”

“Profound,” Mike says. “Ayuh. Monsters are just people.”

Bill smiles. “Ayuh.” He sips his beer. “You know,” he says thoughtfully. “It wouldn’t hurt to have a writing partner.”

Mike’s lips twist into a little smile and he covers it with a sip of his own bottle. “Is that why you asked me here?” he asks dryly. 

Bill laughs, and when he looks back to Mike there’s a twinkle in his eyes. “Mike,” he says, like  _ come on.  _ “I asked you here ‘cause you’re my best friend.”

Beverly burns breakfast and Ben consoles her by massaging her feet in his lap while she tries to find a brunch place near enough to deliver to Ben’s secluded home. He tells her, “I’m fine with just coffee, you know.”

“I  _ know _ ,” she says, frustrated tears actually springing to her eyes. 

“Bev,” he says, lifting a hand to make her lower her phone. She looks up into his earnest eyes, and bursts into sobs. “Bev,” he says again, helplessly, stroking her knee with his hand. 

“Stop being so fucking nice to me!” she chokes into her hands. “I don’t deserve it!”

Ben’s stunned. He almost says something stupid like, “Because of the bacon?” but he doesn’t, because he knows that’s not it. He doesn’t quite know what it is, but it’s not the bacon. Instead, he says, “You were the first person who was ever nice to me, you know.” She blinks blearily at him, breathing shakily. He looks away from her, hand still on her knee, rubbing circles into her skin with his thumb. “That’s gotta count for something, right?”

She looks for a second like she might smile, but instead just sighs. At least she’s not crying when she says, “I’m fucked up, Ben.”

He shakes his head, pulls his hand back and sets it in his lap. “Baby,” he says gruffly, looking down at his hands, “we’re all fucked up.” 

Beverly moves to curl against his side and he puts his arm around her. “You’re so good,” she whispers into his neck as he rubs up and down her arm, feeling goosebumps rise. “And I’m…”

“Don’t you know that’s what I think about you?” he asks softly. “That  _ you’re  _ good, and I’m the one who’s…” He likes that neither of them can say it; maybe it means they’re getting better. “That’s what I meant, about pressure. I don’t want you spending all your time trying to be the girl you think I think you are. I,” he hesitates, blowing out what feels like all the air in his lungs on the next word, “ _ love, _ ” he continues carefully, “ _ you. _ ” He hasn’t said it like that, not yet, not since Derry. But there, he’s said it. 

“I know,” she murmurs, touching his cheek to make him look into her eyes. “I know, but I can’t stop thinking—”

“Stop thinking,” he whispers, pressing his forehead to hers. He doesn’t want to scare her, throwing around words like ‘unconditional’ and ‘forever,’ but he doesn’t know how else to fix this. 

“I don’t want to let you down,” she says, her lips brushing his as she speaks. 

“You haven’t so far,” he tries, and that makes her laugh. 

“I like that,” she tells him, pressing a kiss to his cheek and moving back to nuzzle his neck. “Not ‘you won’t,’ but ‘you haven’t yet.’”

He smiles, kisses the top of her hair. “You’re going to find out all sorts of god-awful things about me, you know.”

“What, did you use to be fat or something?” she teases, then stiffens, face going pale. “Oh, Ben, I didn’t mean—”

But he’s laughing, he’s laughing and wrapping his arms around her, and they both know this conversation is far from over but for now it’s laid to rest.

Richie’s fallen asleep in his chair. It’s just after dusk and Eddie’s little lamp gives Richie this sort of glow, makes him look, for some reason Eddie’s fuzzy brain can’t explain, like one of those plastic light-up lawn ornaments for Christmas, a little Santa or Mary. His stubble is thickening, black with specks of grey, and he’s drooling onto the collar of his jacket. His head drops and he wakes himself up, wiping his chin and adjusting his glasses, only to find Eddie staring at him. “Hey,” he says, sitting up. “Que pasa, Eduardo?” Eddie finds himself unable to reply. He feels it rising in his throat, clouding his eyes. “Eddie?” Richie says, starting to sound a little panicked. “Hey, are you okay, should I call someone?”

“No,” he chokes out. “I…”

“Does it hurt?” Richie asks. “You need water?”

“Just—stop fussing a second, I’m fine,” Eddie snaps. “I just…” He stares at Richie, his stupid teeth and his messy hair and his terrible posture, surely only made worse from sleeping in that chair practically all day and night for the past week. “Can you just,” Eddie starts again, then stops. 

“Spit it out, man,” Richie says, and Eddie scowls. 

“Just—come here,” he growls in frustration, gesturing with his hand. Richie crosses the four feet between his chair and Eddie’s bed and just looks at him. Eddie reaches his hand up to take Richie’s, and just holds it. Richie’s lips part and he’s blinking fast, but he doesn’t pull away. He just sits on the edge of Eddie’s hospital bed and holds his hand. 

Eddie doesn’t ask why Richie stays anymore. 

None of them do; they know. And poor, dead Stan can smile somewhere in eternity because he  _ saved  _ them, and now they can stick around to save each other. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading this! It's honestly kind of short and rough but was just a way to get out some ideas I've been having about their character dynamics. My Eddie/Richie is obviously more practiced than anything else, but I've just been thinking about them all and how much I fucking love them and want them all to take care of each other. I also want to note that even though I didn't mark this as being Bill/Mike, it totally could be interpreted that way, I'm not sure where exactly I'm going with that.


End file.
